Human rights advocate Elie Wiesel turns 86

Published 8:38 pm, Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor who was born in Sighet, Romania, in 1928, won the Nobel in 1986 for exposing "the utter contempt for humanity shown in Hitler's death camps" during World War II," according to a press release announcing the award. Wiesel used his own personal experiences as a death camp survivor to become "a convincing spokesman for the view of mankind and for the unlimited humanitarianism, which are at all times necessary for a lasting and just peace," the release from the Nobel Committee read.

Wiesel has maintained a low profile in Greenwich, but he has shared his message of peace and humanitarianism in local appearances, including a speech he made at Brunswick School in 2009. There he spoke about "Night," a memoir of his experiences in several concentration camps during the Holocaust, where he lost his father, mother and sister.

Instead of just retelling his story, Wiesel spoke about why he decided it was so important to put it down on paper.

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Wiesel told the students he had to wait 10 years after the end of World War II before he could write about his experiences -- to be sure he used the right words. But reliving such a horrible experience in places like Auschwitz and Buchenwald, where his father died just months before the camp was liberated in 1945, was a way to preserve the memory, he said.

"To forget," Wiesel added, "would give the enemy a posthumous victory, and I don't want that enemy to prevail, ever."